Excerpt from Prevention of Floods in the Valley of Stony Brook: A Report by a CommissionAs houses, yards, walks, avenues, and streets multiply, the surface of the ground becomes smoother and more imper vions, so that less of the rain soaks into it. The street gutters and drains quickly carry into the brook rain-water which before had been absorbed by the earth or had been so delayed in its passage that water from areas near to the channel had time to ¿ow off before that from more remote regions arrived.Besides these general causes certain specific changes have been made which have increased the tendency to ¿ooding in the upper portion of the valley, and by storing the water there have diminished the rate at which it reaches the lower part of the brook.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.